American Tragedy

Sir:

You are to be congratulated for the timely article titled "Head-Hunters" which was printed in TIME, Jan. 24 ...

Now that Mr. Forrestal has taken his life, the tragedy of this affair should be brought home to every American. When three commentators can take to the air and attack a fellow American--and a member of the President's Cabinet--so viciously that he takes his life, it is time something was done . . .

MATHILDE DUESTER Seymour, Conn.

Help for Hellas

Sir:

Please accept my warmest congratulations on your article on Greece [TIME, May 23], for it is the first time that the facts have been told with such sincerity. All Greeks are grateful for the aid that the U.S. has given to Greece. With this American aid, with the Greek fighting spirit, and, above all, with God's help, I am sure that communism will soon cease to exist in the tortured land of Hellas.

Gus PATRIDES Kenyon College Gambier, Ohio

Sir:

...Your article on Greece and the American Mission over here is really blunt and to the point...Many Americans (including the politicos) have the idea that wherever America sends aid and money, we are greeted with open arms. I have heard many Greek people express the opinion that the country would be better off if the Americans took their dollars and left Greece to its slow and inefficient way... These people are not Communist sympathizers, by any means...

As you stated, it is hard to expect democratic thinking out of a people who have never had a chance to practice democracy. But their attitude should be more cooperative than it is.

(SGT.) MARVIN LANZOFF U.S. Army Group Greece

Sir:

...Never have I (even as a son of Greek parents) had such a clear picture of the Greek characteristics . . .

CHRIS P. XEROS Dallas, Tex.

Puffing Bird

Sir:

...The simile, first of all, is unworthy of TIME'S vivid standards: "...Charlie ('Yard-bird') Parker cut loose, puffing his tenor sax like a big cigar..." [TIME, May 23].

Avant garde bopper Parker, as any but the moldiest fig knows, earned his frenetic niche in bopdom by his puffing on the alto sax.

JAMES R. SANDERS New Orleans, La .

Sir:

I was under the impression that the "Bird" plays alto sax 99&44/100ths of the the time. Could TIME have beeped when it should have bopped?

PAUL J. TRAHAN San Francisco, Calif. P:TIME bloopered.--ED.

Brazilians All

Sir:

Your May 23 story on Brazil is topnotch! I was interested in the explanation of Brazil's famous "no color line" as a result of the social heredity of Moorish domination of the Portuguese.

The late unhappy Stefan Zweig shared with most of us who have lived there the belief that Brazil is indeed a "pais do futuro" (land of the future). [He] attributed the lack of race distinction to the organized planning of the early followers of Loyola in the 16th Century. Led by Manoel de Nobrega in 1549, the first six Jesuits in Brazil began to plan the "new state" . . . anticipating the moral equality of all members of the human family. Through miscegenation and education, No brega and those who followed him hoped to create a new nation, if not a new race, homogeneous and thus harmonious.

It takes a while for an American, even a Northerner, to become accustomed to the social equality of the races in Brazil, but he cannot fail to be impressed by the casual harmony of interracial relations. In fact, one might say that there are no "interracial relations" in Brazil; they all are Brazillians, not Negroes or Latins or whites or blacks . . .

G. ROBERT GILBERT Salt Lake City, Utah

A Child a Year?

Sir:

I have always refrained from joining the controversies which arise whenever Roman Catholic doctrine is mentioned. But now I feel it is time for a layman to assure the Rt. Rev. Ernest Barnes [TIME, May 23], as well as many an American countryman that, to my certain knowledge, the church isn't operating a stud farm. Never have I been adjured, by priest or layman, to have a "child a year" or every two years, for that matter.

Nor has the church, I am confident, any designs on the reins of the Rev. Barnes's semi-Communistic religion of the future by using the strategy of the rabbits: "If you can't outrun 'em, stay here and outnumber 'em."

I am, I blushingly confess, the mother of four children, the oldest of whom is nearly four, so I am used to all sorts of inferential insults, ranging from "Medieval!" to "Get a calendar!"--this last from Catholics. . .

-MRS. JOHN M. DRAIN Cleveland, Ohio

Diplomatic Salad Dressing

Sir:

An ardent and faithful admirer of your excellent magazine, I have naturally read with great interest your number of the 25th of April last . . .

I would like to point out to you that, as in every good salad dressing, the proportion of vinegar and oil must be calculated with exactitude and balance. In this article your reporter appears to have been rather frivolous in the use of both these elements, converting a dream into a nightmare.

Therefore, although most obliged to you for the complimentary references in the article, I must stress the fact that . . . never, fortunately, have I found myself in the distressing circumstances you so gleefully describe.*

JOSE MARIA DE AREILZA

Conde de Motrico Spanish Ambassador Buenos Aires, Argentina P:For the Conde de Motrico's skilled diplomacy, TIME'S continuing admiration.--ED.

Sweet Debauchery

Sir:

Thank you for an accurate description of the candy-gorging scenes in Britain when "sweets" came off the ration [TIME, May 2]. I would like you to record, however, that such debauchery was short-lived. All available supplies of chocolate soon disappeared into stomachs craving for extra sustenance, and now queues are everywhere for such sparse and less glamorous confectionery as licorice sticks, peppermints and barley sugar.

TREVOR HENLEY South Croydon, Surrey, England

Used-Car Lot

Sir:

Having read your May 23 article on the plight of the used-car dealer, I can only say that it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of stinkers . . .

For the past eight years they've been robbing the public blind, selling . . . "new-used" cars at such high prices that one needed an oxygen mask to look at them . . .

ROBERT W. MILLER New York City

Sir:

. . . One of the most exhilarating and gratifying items that I have seen in many a moon. . .

I believe . . . the nation shares the hope with me that they will lose all of the money they collected in "bonuses" and other "under-the-table" activities during the car shortage and then some of their own . . .

Hooray for the slump. Chickens are at last coming home to roost . . .

T A T r rt E-E-JOHNSON Los Angeles, Calif.

-The circumstances: after twiddling his thumbs in an anteroom for two hours, the ambassador "was finally ushered into the flunky-filled presence of Eva Peron [who] was getting off an insulting tirade against the Count and his country . . ."

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